An Unerring Eye for Beauty

About Ken Hayden

Ken Hayden

Photographer Ken Hayden, an Ohio native, moved to London to study photography at the age of 30. Interior designers commissioning him to photograph their projects quickly landed him in a half a dozen European magazines, including Architectural Digest in Germany, France and Russia. Given how naturally his career evolved from these early collaborations, it’s no surprise that designers and architects hiring him to photograph their projects has remained a robust segment of his highly successful business.

Ken has traveled the globe photographing some of the world’s most lauded hotels, resorts, spas and travel destinations. Hospitality clients in his photography portfolio include the Aman Resorts, and the Taj Group of hotels, resorts and palaces. Ken has photographed 18 of the 25 resorts owned by Aman worldwide, an enviable recall rate amongst his photography colleagues. Professional designers and architects in his portfolio read like a who’s who of iconic insiders, such as Nadja Swarovski, and AD 100 designers Jennifer Post, Juan Montoya, Terry Hunziker, David Kleinberg, Thad Hayes and Jean-Louis Deniot.

Given the sophistication of the interiors he was asked to photograph combined with the aesthetic beauty he captures, a transition to editorial was inevitable. When Ken’s scouting shots from his designer/architect clients landed on American magazine editors’ desks, they quickly tapped him to photograph interiors and architecture for their pages due to the appeal they saw captured within each frame. The A-list of luxury shelter and lifestyle publications in Ken’s portfolio include Architectural Digest (U.S.), Interior Design, The New York Times, House Beautiful, Metropolitan Home, Wallpaper, and Luxe.

Once his lenses became some of the hottest on the American editorial scene, book publishers came calling. A solo credit is Classic Chic, which he photographed for Jacqui Small Publishing; and his images are included within the pages of Bachelor Style, Taschen’s Great Escapes Asia, Sarasota Modern and Four Florida Moderns. Saxon Henry, who chose a Hayden photograph for the cover of her Four Florida Moderns, says of Ken’s work, “What most people don’t realize when they are looking at a beautiful spread achieved by a professional photographer like Ken Hayden is that there is much more to those pages than meets the eye. Not only are hours of on-location shooting required, there are as many or more hours of post-production tasks demanded of him. It’s Ken’s breadth of experience in both respects that makes him such an in-demand photographer.” Ken and Saxon have collaborated on editorial content a number of times, by design: “Besides the fact he is one of the most professional photographers I’ve had the pleasure of working with, Ken Hayden is also one of the kindest. Trust me: when the pressure is on and there’s a shoot to produce, calm and courtesy count big time!”

Trading his UK home base for the hip enclave of South Beach, Ken remains at the ready to travel far and wide to make magic with his camera—this equipment and an unerring eye powerful weapons in his arsenal. Even if work didn’t take the member of the American Society of Media Photographers away from Miami Beach frequently, Ken would be an avid globetrotter, spending as much time as possible exercising his commanding point of view. Even when he’s on assignment, he finds time to roam with his camera, amassing a remarkable cache of fine art images that capture historic sites, cultural contexts, and breathtaking natural beauty with the same emotionality that makes his interiors photography so powerful.